The kid

By now you know I have the 2 kids. The one a mini me the other, a mini Eric? I'm not sure if he is or not, I just know he is a mini-trouble maker. UGH! But Gwen excuse me Briar Rose makes my life a challenge in different ways, I think it can be VERY difficult to parent yourself. I would have thought it was easier but there are so many of my personality faults in her that I would like to help her not have. And well, she doesn't really see it that way. Sure she is cute and sweet and just plain helpful, but I struggle with her on many things. I have yet to figure out how to get her to help me with certain things I want to do, like clean up her room or try new things. This week we had a new development, I actually got her to try something new and she was so excited after she tried it. I felt so proud of both of us! Last year I took Gwen out on her bike and she fell down the hill. It was terrible, and until this week whenever the road went down or up she would get off her bike and ride it. This week I told her she should try going down the little hill of our driveway, she refused, I persisted, it took about 5 minutes of coaxing and she FINALLY decided to try it, with me standing next to her of course and now, she rides down the hill by herself and even all the way up to our front door and around the car. But to show you what I mean I took a video, because I am so proud and although she is not going as fast as she had been you can see the idea.

Bike 1 from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

I still have to figure out how to motivate her, but maybe we are getting there. Here's another video, more of the same, but really why watch 1 video when you can watch 2!

Bike down from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

In other news Gwen has again decided to not wear diapers at bed time. I am trying to encourage her to go more often during the day and trying to explain to her that she is going to need to get up in the middle of the night and go. I don't know how to deal with this exactly, am I supposed to wake her up in the middle of the night to get her to pee? Will she start doing that on her own if I start waking her up, or is this another train Mommy to do it type thing? I am really at a loss here, but I would like her to be out of diapers completely, I KNOW she can do it I just have to figure out a way to help her. UGH! I guess I should start doing some more research on this and that will help me figure it out.
I also took the kids to a new park yesterday and it was hilarious, Gwen climbs to the top of the big steps to a really windy slide and yells "HOLY CRAP"! I had no idea what to do, but we had just gotten to the park and there was 1 other guy there with his kid and I was kind embarrassed because we had just gotten there and that was the first thing she said, not once but twice! But still it was kind of funny and I was super glad that my language was cleared up enough that she didn't yell something worse because there was a time when I said way worse phrases than "holy crap"! Let's just say Eric had a good laugh over that story!